444 Marlin

Arcticjohn
[subject]
Wednesday, November 16, 2022, 14:55 (499 days ago)

I'm looking to purchase loading dies, brass and/or bullets for 444 Marlin. If anyone on the forum has any of that they would like to sell, please let me know. Thanks, John Stevens

Starline has 444 brass right now.

Jeff Spencer
[subject]
Wednesday, November 16, 2022, 21:42 (498 days ago) @ Arcticjohn

- No text -

LOOK FOR HORNADY 265

JT
[subject]
Thursday, November 17, 2022, 09:21 (498 days ago) @ Jeff Spencer

GRAIN BULLETS

You need to stock up when you can. I play

WB
[subject]
Thursday, November 17, 2022, 08:38 (498 days ago) @ Arcticjohn

with them quite a bit making brass .410 shells (never crimp them for longevity - glue the end wads). I fabricate some wildcats, including homemade .356 Winchester cases, from .444.

I am going to read someday" Scott Boggs blown up"

Winnturner48
[subject]
Thursday, November 17, 2022, 08:54 (498 days ago) @ WB

with them quite a bit making brass .410 shells (never crimp them for longevity - glue the end wads). I fabricate some wildcats, including homemade .356 Winchester cases, from .444.

LOL, anything can happen. Way back I really

WB
[subject]
Thursday, November 17, 2022, 13:06 (498 days ago) @ Winnturner48

wanted one of JD's .375 full house Contender rigs. This was last century, before I began working with Gary's rounds. I saved and saved and finally got one. It was a good gun, about all I'd truly want on that chassis. Even Mag-na-ported it kicked like the devil and whacked my knuckle. JD liked alloy scope mounts and industrial chrome plating. But that was a good round for the old TC, based on the .444 case.

Of late I got the idea of making .410 cases to use in my Mom's old Taurus I inherited. I wanted to make some multi-ball rounds to try and make it actually effective. Crimping gas checks for top wads made splits in the case mouths. I may try to anneal to help that. But I found using hot glue'd over card wads and no crimp it worked well. No extraction problems, a shotgun chamber is tapered you know. I figure it would work well in my TC .45/410 barrel.

A friend gave me a re-chambered .35 Rem. TC barrel done by Mike Bellm, it is an odd round. You pass a full length .444 case in a .358 Win. FL die. It makes a really ugly looking round, sort of a cross between a .30-30/.30-40 but in .35 cal. I had a .356 Win. so I shortened that Wildcat so the neck was about half as long, it was basically a rimmed .358 Win. or de-facto .356 Win. It's not anything special it is just an interesting exercise and a bump over .35 Rem. ballistics. Cases do seem to last a long time.

The .444 Marlin itself I had a little trouble in the Marlin rifle. It required a set OAL to function. "Some" heavy or longer .44 bullets seated deep enough to function bulged the case where it began to thicken. The .444 was designed for 240-265 gr. bullets exclusively. My 330's were just too long. But in it's design limits it worked great.

240-265 EXCLUSIVELY???

JT
[subject]
Thursday, November 17, 2022, 15:54 (498 days ago) @ WB

The .444 Marlin

A look through the pages of the latest edition of Cartridges Of The World reveals 20 obsolete .44 American rifle cartridges with only one now being seen from time to time in replicas of the Sharps rifle, that being the .44-77. All the rest are long gone, dead, buried. However, we have one rifle cartridge today descended from this long line of mostly straight bodied .44s and that is the .444 Marlin. The fact the .444 Marlin still exists is a grand testimonial to its excellence, for it is not often that a cartridge is able to overcome the wrong configurations by both the rifle and ammunition manufacturer and manage to survive. The .444 Marlin is about as useful a close range, hard-hittin', easy handlin' levergun and cartridge combination that man could possibly conceive for anything short of the big bears and Africa's toughest, and with the right bullet and load it could even be used in these situations. With a heavy, tough jacketed or hard cast bullet in a short lightweight levergun it is near perfect.
The .444 Marlin levergun was introduced in 1964 and it was obvious from the start it did not know if it was fish or fowl. That first Model 444, as it was called, was a 24" barreled levergun with a two-thirds magazine, a straight-gripped stock, plus points for that, and a Monte Carlo Cheek piece, definitely minus points here; and for ammunition it was conceived as nothing more than a glorified .44 Magnum loading with the same 240 grain bullet the sixgun round utilized. The rifle was wrong and so was the ammunition. Long-range rifles are the proper home for 24” barrels, while the .444 loaded with the 240 grain could not really do anything not accomplished with the much easier handling, shorter, and lighter .44 Magnum Carbine.
Remington gave us a much better choice of ammunition when they loaded the tougher 265 grain bullet, and in the 1990s, Marlin, with its Outfitter, brought forth an 18-1/2" barreled easier handling up close levergun.. Now we really had something. The 265 grain Remington load is gone but it has been replaced by several better heavy bulleted loads from Buffalo Bore and Cor-Bon. The latter has both a 280 and 305 grain load, while Buffalo Bore offers ammunition loaded with 270, 300, and 325 grain bullets. All of these loads are designed for tough use on tough critters; and they are at their best in leverguns close to the same size as similar guns chambered in .44 Magnum or .44-40.
The .444 Marlin, at a length of 2.225", is not an elongated .44 Magnum as some may think. It is a slightly tapered case going from .470" at the base to .453" at the case mouth while the 1.285" long .44 Magnum is a straight case of .456" diameter. As we shall see in the next chapter one of the first, perhaps the first, experimenter to come up with the .44 Maximum idea was friend Lew Schafer who used a .444 Marlin cut to 1.6", turned on a lathe to be the same diameter as a .44 Magnum, and fired in a re-chambered 357 Dan Wesson SuperMag fitted with a .44 Magnum barrel. Then it was known as the .44 UltraMag. J.D. Jones also uses the .444 Marlin case as a basis for several wildcats including the superb .375 JDJ and way back in the early days trimmed the .444 Marlin one-tenth of an inch to come up with the .430JDJ for use with 300 to 340 hard cast bullets in the Thompson/Center Contender.
Marlin still offers their basic levergun, at least until Remington purchased the company, though now offered with a 22" instead of a 24" barrel, as well as the above mentioned Outfitter. Even Winchester rode on the .444 bandwagon with both an 18" Timber Carbine on the Big Bore Angle Eject platform and a 20" Black Shadow Big Bore with a black synthetic stock. Both of these were long gone even before the closing of the Winchester plant. At its advent not only was the .444 Marlin saddled with a rifle that was too large and clumsy, and a bullet that was too small and fragile, it had to also overcome the fact that it was only chambered in a levergun that had Micro Groove rifling. This type of rifling uses more and shallower grooves than the conventional style. Everyone knows this type of rifling will not work with cast bullets. Wrong! Unfortunately this myth is still kept alive by those not in the know; as with most myths it does have a semblance of truth.
The truth of the myth surrounding the Marlin Micro Groove rifling is not cast bullets won't work but simply some cast bullets won't work. Do not pass up a good old Marlin .444 levergun because the barrel is marked "MICRO GROOVE." A good friend of mine in Texas loved the .444 Marlin but he had fallen in with the "won't shoot cast bullets crowd." I sent him a target shot with the .444 Marlin in my Micro Groove barreled levergun. All the holes were tightly connected to each other. Immediately after he received the target with no comment attached I got a phone call from him. "How did you do that?" Four words answered the question: bullet weight and muzzle velocity. More on this shortly.
When reaching for the .444 Marlin I am filling a need that may be a strain on the .44 Magnum levergun but with the same easy carrying and shooting qualities desired. My first big bore levergun was a Marlin 336 .44 Magnum picked up brand new in the 1960s. Instead of seeing how fast I could drive heavy bullets through it, I decided some time ago to build up the ideal levergun in .444 Marlin. A like new but used straight-gripped .444 Marlin was found at our local gunshop, Shapel's, fired to check out its worth, and then sent off to gunsmith Keith DeHart. It was during this initial testing that the total destruction of the two myths connected with Marlin .444s with Micro Groove rifling occurred. Those untruths spread for years were this caliber and rifling style would handle neither cast bullets nor heavyweight bullets. My test results revealed 300 grain cast bullets would cut one hole groups for three shots at fifty yards. When the same results were obtained with 300 grain jacketed bullets, I knew the .444 Marlin Model 444 was a great choice for the conversion to a much handier levergun along the same lines as my Marlin 336 .44 Magnum. Gunsmith Keith DeHart cut the original 24" barrel to 18-1/2", installed a full magazine tube holding six rounds, and the original bead front sight was mated up with a Lyman #66 Receiver sight.
What a difference in handling qualities resulted! The clumsiness was gone and it handled as well as the slightly smaller .44 Magnum. It almost seems Marlin looked in my gun safe before the advent of their .444 Outfitter; they missed the full magazine tube but returned to the straight-gripped stock and also went with a barrel length of 18-1/2". A look down the barrel of the Model 444P, as the Outfitter .444 was model numbered by Marlin, reveals a return to conventional rifling away from the many grooved MicroGrooved style.
These two Marlin leverguns now handle all of my .444 shooting chores and just to be a little different, the Outfitter now wears a Burris 2X LER scope on Ashley Outdoors new Scout-style scope base made specifically for the big bore leverguns from Marlin. Mounted far forward on the barrel, target acquisition is very fast and as an extra added bonus youngsters have no fear of getting rapped in the eye with the scope eyepiece. Installation is easy using the already drilled and tapped holes on the top of the receiver and the rear sight dovetail. Just in case conditions warrant iron sights instead of a scope, the Burris with its Weaver rings is easily removable, and the base of an Ashley Outdoors Ghost Ring is already at home on the Outfitter's receiver.
Unlike the mid-1960s when the .444 Marlin was introduced, we now have excellent .44 bullet choices both heavyweight cast and jacketed style. The 300 grain bullets designed for the .44 Magnum that work so well in sixguns, are even better in the .444 Marlin but there are tradeoffs. When reloading for the .444 Marlin overall length must be watched closely and most bullets will need to be seated deep and crimped over the shoulder in the case of cast bullets.
Forty-four caliber bullets designed for sixgun use in such long cylindered .44 Magnums as Ruger's Redhawk and Super Redhawk normally protrude too far from the .444 Marlin case to work through the action when crimped in the crimping groove. I always make up a dummy cartridge first to check all loads for positive feeding through the Marlin action. Even jacketed bullets may prove to provide an overall length that is too long if the crimping groove is used. Also the older .444 will accept rounds the newer guns will not. The problem is not feeding nor overall length but the wider bullets will not allow the cartridge to make the turn as it is inserted into the loading gate. Again check all rounds with DUMMY cartridges worked through the loading gate and action before loading up several boxes. Once the overall cartridge length is determined for total reliability these dummy rounds can be stored at the reloading area for setting the seating and crimping die in the future.
I did not approach the .444 Marlin with the idea of somehow coming up with a ".44 Magnum Swift"; trying to see how fast I could drive a 240 grain .44 Magnum bullet did not even enter the picture. Instead I wanted the .444 to do with heavyweight bullets what the .44 Magnum could do with standard weight .44 bullets; perhaps even a little more. To this end I do not recall ever loading any bullets less than 265 grains in weight in the .444 Marlin.
As stated earlier the first .444 Marlin ammunition from Remington used the same 240 grain bullet as the .44 Magnum revolver originally and the .444 really only came even remotely close to a big game rifle cartridge with the introduction of ammunition using Hornady's 265 grain JFN bullet. Just to show once again there is really nothing new under the sun, we can point out that before the advent of the .444, custom leverguns had been built up using the .30-40 Krag case blown out straight, loaded with .44 caliber sixgun bullets, and chambered in a Marlin 336 or Winchester 94. As with Marlin's Model 444, they too were hampered by the lack of suitable bullets.
So for me reloading for the .444 Marlin starts with the Hornady 265 grain Jacketed Flat Point and ends with Cast Performance Bullet Company's 320 grain hard cast LBT flat nosed gas check. The latter is chosen as the ultimate heavyweight bullet simply due to the fact that even it must be seated so deep to allow it to enter the loading gate and work through the action a bullet of any greater length would simply not be practical. In between these two bullet selections are several options both cast and jacketed in weight ranges from 275 to 310 grains.
My first ventures in loading heavyweight bullets for the .444 Marlin were simply making hopefully sound judgments backed up by a whole lot of experience. Things are much less complicated now with heavyweight loads from Buffalo Bore and Cor-Bon. Not only are these excellent loads for the non-reloader who is looking for a tough bullet to handle big game, they also give us guidelines for our own reloading ventures. I have no way of reading pressures, Buffalo Bore and Cor-Bon do. I try to stay at or below their muzzle velocities with respected bullet weights.
Here are those parameters with all loads clocked in my 18-1/2" custom .444 over Oehler's Model 35P sky screens. From Buffalo Bore, the 270 grain JFN does 2,210 fps; the 300 grain JFN, 2,095 fps; and the 325 gain LBT LFN hard cast, 2,009 fps. With Cor-Bon's two loadings we find the 280 grain Bonded Core at 2,248 fps and the 305 grain JFP at 2,070. In my reloading of the .444 Marlin I have used jacketed bullets from Barnes, Freedom Arms, Hornady, Sierra, and Speer. There are certainly others available however these are the ones I have used not only in the .444 Marlin but the little brother .44 Magnum as well. Barnes marks their bullets for the .44 Magnum and .444 Marlin while all the others were developed to give reloaders a tough bullet for use in .44 Magnum sixguns.
For most of us whose big game hunting is restricted to whitetail deer and maybe, if we are fortunate, a chance at a black bear, the 265 Hornady remains a fine choice. This is one of those bullets so good I almost think it was simply discovered rather than invented. It gives superb long range accuracy in .44 Magnum sixguns, I used it for years for long range silhouetting, as well as being suitable for hunting big game. When it comes to cast bullets, and this is what I mostly use in the .444 Marlin now that the poor accuracy with cast bullets myth has been laid to rest, I once again use the same heavy bullets that have been so successful in .44 Magnum sixguns. Both the NEI 295 grain gas checked semi-wadcutter and RCBS's 300 grain versions of the same bullet are traditional Keith designs with flat points and wide front driving bands. They are not recognizable as such when loaded in the .444 Marlin as they must be crimped over the front shoulder to allow feeding.
For top accuracy I found that these bullets as well as their jacketed counterparts should be driven to a minimum velocity of 1,900 feet per second in the original 24" barrel. That is the bullet weight and muzzle velocity mentioned earlier. A 300 grain bullet at 1900 feet per second or more in the .444 Marlin, even with MicroGroove rifling, will perform. One can only dream of what could be done with these in a longer action. The slightly heavier bullets from the old SSK #310.430 mold and Cast Performance Bullet Co.'s 320 grain LBT gas check are both very flat nosed for maximum energy transfer when they hit. These are probably the best choice in cast bullets for using the .444 Marlin on really big tough critters. They break big bones and penetrate heavy muscles.
If my levergun was to be used only for small deer and small hogs I would go with the .44 Magnum. If the menu included the larger bears and possibly Africa, my choice would certainly be the .45-70. But for a levergun that can nearly do it all, the .444 Marlin, properly loaded, remains an excellent choice. It spite of all the testing that has been done with results to the contrary over the past 56+ years, from time to time we still see articles published about best 'brush' cartridges with conclusions certain bullet weights and calibers would somehow 'cut brush'. This is wrong! There are no cartridges that can be counted on to deliver killing shots through brush of any size. When a high-peed projectile hits a twig or sapling or brush or bush or tree, anything can happen and very little of it is positive. Of course some are better than others. I would certainly expect a 500 grain .458 bullet to 'cut brush' better than a high-speed projectile such as the .220 Swift. Maybe. At least if one hits a small tree in front of the intended quarry, the .458 might go through completely; again, maybe.
No, brush guns do not enable us to shoot through brush. They are so named simply because they handle easier in heavy cover or thick brush and most importantly, they come up to the shoulder and swing ever so quickly. Try carrying and swinging a 24” barreled rifle in heavy cover; the noted elephant hunter, Pondoro Taylor, wrote of almost being killed when the long barrel of his rifle got caught up in brush. The easiest carrying brush guns are short barreled, quick on the first shot, and just as quick to chamber a second shot. That means a levergun and we do not need 300 yard cartridges or rifles. Again, we are not talking cartridges that will penetrate brush; we are instead talking close-range cartridges that will deliver a big heavy bullet at ranges up to 100 yards, more likely 50 yards, and do it quickly and efficiently. Here are some loads capable of doing exactly what we are talking about. Expect a lot more recoil than that generated by a similarly sized .44 Magnum levergun and one-inch, three- shot groups at 50 yards:
Load MV 18-1/2” Barrel
Barnes 275 JFP/48.0 gr. H322 1,956 fps
Barnes 275 JFP/46.0 grs. RE-7 2,081 fps
Barnes 300 JFP/45.0 grs. RE-7 2,030 fps
Freedom Arms 300/48.0 gr. H322 2,006 fps
Hornady 265 JFP/50.8 gr. H322 2,000 fps
Hornady 265 JFP/51.3 gr. H4895 2,046 fps
Hornady 265 JFP/47.0 gr. RE-7 2,067 fps
Hornady 300 XTP/51.3 gr. H4895 1,927 fps
Hornady 300 XTP/48.0 gr. H322 2,075 fps
Sierra 300 JFP/51.3 gr. H4895 1,894 fps
Sierra 300 JFP/48.0 gr. H322 2,006 fps
Speer 300 JFP/48.0 gr. H322 2,036 fps
Speer 300 JFP/51.3 gr. H4895 1,923 fps
Speer 300 JFP/49.6 gr. H4895 1,728 fps
BRP 295 GC/51.3 gr. H4895 1,900 fps
BRP 295 GC/49.3 gr. H4895 1,831 fps
BRP 295 GC/46.0 grs. RE-7 2,142 fps
Cast Performance 320/45.0 grs RE-7 2,065 fps
RCBS #44-300 SWC GC/49.3 gr. H4895 1,831 fps
SSK 310 FP/ 51.3 gr. H4895 1,906 fps
There is a natural niche in between the .44 Magnum of 1956 and the .444 Marlin of 1964. As we shall see in the next chapter it arrived in the 1980s in several forms.


The .444 Marlin

A look through the pages of the latest edition of Cartridges Of The World reveals 20 obsolete .44 American rifle cartridges with only one now being seen from time to time in replicas of the Sharps rifle, that being the .44-77. All the rest are long gone, dead, buried. However, we have one rifle cartridge today descended from this long line of mostly straight bodied .44s and that is the .444 Marlin. The fact the .444 Marlin still exists is a grand testimonial to its excellence, for it is not often that a cartridge is able to overcome the wrong configurations by both the rifle and ammunition manufacturer and manage to survive. The .444 Marlin is about as useful a close range, hard-hittin', easy handlin' levergun and cartridge combination that man could possibly conceive for anything short of the big bears and Africa's toughest, and with the right bullet and load it could even be used in these situations. With a heavy, tough jacketed or hard cast bullet in a short lightweight levergun it is near perfect.
The .444 Marlin levergun was introduced in 1964 and it was obvious from the start it did not know if it was fish or fowl. That first Model 444, as it was called, was a 24" barreled levergun with a two-thirds magazine, a straight-gripped stock, plus points for that, and a Monte Carlo Cheek piece, definitely minus points here; and for ammunition it was conceived as nothing more than a glorified .44 Magnum loading with the same 240 grain bullet the sixgun round utilized. The rifle was wrong and so was the ammunition. Long-range rifles are the proper home for 24” barrels, while the .444 loaded with the 240 grain could not really do anything not accomplished with the much easier handling, shorter, and lighter .44 Magnum Carbine.
Remington gave us a much better choice of ammunition when they loaded the tougher 265 grain bullet, and in the 1990s, Marlin, with its Outfitter, brought forth an 18-1/2" barreled easier handling up close levergun.. Now we really had something. The 265 grain Remington load is gone but it has been replaced by several better heavy bulleted loads from Buffalo Bore and Cor-Bon. The latter has both a 280 and 305 grain load, while Buffalo Bore offers ammunition loaded with 270, 300, and 325 grain bullets. All of these loads are designed for tough use on tough critters; and they are at their best in leverguns close to the same size as similar guns chambered in .44 Magnum or .44-40.
The .444 Marlin, at a length of 2.225", is not an elongated .44 Magnum as some may think. It is a slightly tapered case going from .470" at the base to .453" at the case mouth while the 1.285" long .44 Magnum is a straight case of .456" diameter. As we shall see in the next chapter one of the first, perhaps the first, experimenter to come up with the .44 Maximum idea was friend Lew Schafer who used a .444 Marlin cut to 1.6", turned on a lathe to be the same diameter as a .44 Magnum, and fired in a re-chambered 357 Dan Wesson SuperMag fitted with a .44 Magnum barrel. Then it was known as the .44 UltraMag. J.D. Jones also uses the .444 Marlin case as a basis for several wildcats including the superb .375 JDJ and way back in the early days trimmed the .444 Marlin one-tenth of an inch to come up with the .430JDJ for use with 300 to 340 hard cast bullets in the Thompson/Center Contender.
Marlin still offers their basic levergun, at least until Remington purchased the company, though now offered with a 22" instead of a 24" barrel, as well as the above mentioned Outfitter. Even Winchester rode on the .444 bandwagon with both an 18" Timber Carbine on the Big Bore Angle Eject platform and a 20" Black Shadow Big Bore with a black synthetic stock. Both of these were long gone even before the closing of the Winchester plant. At its advent not only was the .444 Marlin saddled with a rifle that was too large and clumsy, and a bullet that was too small and fragile, it had to also overcome the fact that it was only chambered in a levergun that had Micro Groove rifling. This type of rifling uses more and shallower grooves than the conventional style. Everyone knows this type of rifling will not work with cast bullets. Wrong! Unfortunately this myth is still kept alive by those not in the know; as with most myths it does have a semblance of truth.
The truth of the myth surrounding the Marlin Micro Groove rifling is not cast bullets won't work but simply some cast bullets won't work. Do not pass up a good old Marlin .444 levergun because the barrel is marked "MICRO GROOVE." A good friend of mine in Texas loved the .444 Marlin but he had fallen in with the "won't shoot cast bullets crowd." I sent him a target shot with the .444 Marlin in my Micro Groove barreled levergun. All the holes were tightly connected to each other. Immediately after he received the target with no comment attached I got a phone call from him. "How did you do that?" Four words answered the question: bullet weight and muzzle velocity. More on this shortly.
When reaching for the .444 Marlin I am filling a need that may be a strain on the .44 Magnum levergun but with the same easy carrying and shooting qualities desired. My first big bore levergun was a Marlin 336 .44 Magnum picked up brand new in the 1960s. Instead of seeing how fast I could drive heavy bullets through it, I decided some time ago to build up the ideal levergun in .444 Marlin. A like new but used straight-gripped .444 Marlin was found at our local gunshop, Shapel's, fired to check out its worth, and then sent off to gunsmith Keith DeHart. It was during this initial testing that the total destruction of the two myths connected with Marlin .444s with Micro Groove rifling occurred. Those untruths spread for years were this caliber and rifling style would handle neither cast bullets nor heavyweight bullets. My test results revealed 300 grain cast bullets would cut one hole groups for three shots at fifty yards. When the same results were obtained with 300 grain jacketed bullets, I knew the .444 Marlin Model 444 was a great choice for the conversion to a much handier levergun along the same lines as my Marlin 336 .44 Magnum. Gunsmith Keith DeHart cut the original 24" barrel to 18-1/2", installed a full magazine tube holding six rounds, and the original bead front sight was mated up with a Lyman #66 Receiver sight.
What a difference in handling qualities resulted! The clumsiness was gone and it handled as well as the slightly smaller .44 Magnum. It almost seems Marlin looked in my gun safe before the advent of their .444 Outfitter; they missed the full magazine tube but returned to the straight-gripped stock and also went with a barrel length of 18-1/2". A look down the barrel of the Model 444P, as the Outfitter .444 was model numbered by Marlin, reveals a return to conventional rifling away from the many grooved MicroGrooved style.
These two Marlin leverguns now handle all of my .444 shooting chores and just to be a little different, the Outfitter now wears a Burris 2X LER scope on Ashley Outdoors new Scout-style scope base made specifically for the big bore leverguns from Marlin. Mounted far forward on the barrel, target acquisition is very fast and as an extra added bonus youngsters have no fear of getting rapped in the eye with the scope eyepiece. Installation is easy using the already drilled and tapped holes on the top of the receiver and the rear sight dovetail. Just in case conditions warrant iron sights instead of a scope, the Burris with its Weaver rings is easily removable, and the base of an Ashley Outdoors Ghost Ring is already at home on the Outfitter's receiver.
Unlike the mid-1960s when the .444 Marlin was introduced, we now have excellent .44 bullet choices both heavyweight cast and jacketed style. The 300 grain bullets designed for the .44 Magnum that work so well in sixguns, are even better in the .444 Marlin but there are tradeoffs. When reloading for the .444 Marlin overall length must be watched closely and most bullets will need to be seated deep and crimped over the shoulder in the case of cast bullets.
Forty-four caliber bullets designed for sixgun use in such long cylindered .44 Magnums as Ruger's Redhawk and Super Redhawk normally protrude too far from the .444 Marlin case to work through the action when crimped in the crimping groove. I always make up a dummy cartridge first to check all loads for positive feeding through the Marlin action. Even jacketed bullets may prove to provide an overall length that is too long if the crimping groove is used. Also the older .444 will accept rounds the newer guns will not. The problem is not feeding nor overall length but the wider bullets will not allow the cartridge to make the turn as it is inserted into the loading gate. Again check all rounds with DUMMY cartridges worked through the loading gate and action before loading up several boxes. Once the overall cartridge length is determined for total reliability these dummy rounds can be stored at the reloading area for setting the seating and crimping die in the future.
I did not approach the .444 Marlin with the idea of somehow coming up with a ".44 Magnum Swift"; trying to see how fast I could drive a 240 grain .44 Magnum bullet did not even enter the picture. Instead I wanted the .444 to do with heavyweight bullets what the .44 Magnum could do with standard weight .44 bullets; perhaps even a little more. To this end I do not recall ever loading any bullets less than 265 grains in weight in the .444 Marlin.
As stated earlier the first .444 Marlin ammunition from Remington used the same 240 grain bullet as the .44 Magnum revolver originally and the .444 really only came even remotely close to a big game rifle cartridge with the introduction of ammunition using Hornady's 265 grain JFN bullet. Just to show once again there is really nothing new under the sun, we can point out that before the advent of the .444, custom leverguns had been built up using the .30-40 Krag case blown out straight, loaded with .44 caliber sixgun bullets, and chambered in a Marlin 336 or Winchester 94. As with Marlin's Model 444, they too were hampered by the lack of suitable bullets.
So for me reloading for the .444 Marlin starts with the Hornady 265 grain Jacketed Flat Point and ends with Cast Performance Bullet Company's 320 grain hard cast LBT flat nosed gas check. The latter is chosen as the ultimate heavyweight bullet simply due to the fact that even it must be seated so deep to allow it to enter the loading gate and work through the action a bullet of any greater length would simply not be practical. In between these two bullet selections are several options both cast and jacketed in weight ranges from 275 to 310 grains.
My first ventures in loading heavyweight bullets for the .444 Marlin were simply making hopefully sound judgments backed up by a whole lot of experience. Things are much less complicated now with heavyweight loads from Buffalo Bore and Cor-Bon. Not only are these excellent loads for the non-reloader who is looking for a tough bullet to handle big game, they also give us guidelines for our own reloading ventures. I have no way of reading pressures, Buffalo Bore and Cor-Bon do. I try to stay at or below their muzzle velocities with respected bullet weights.
Here are those parameters with all loads clocked in my 18-1/2" custom .444 over Oehler's Model 35P sky screens. From Buffalo Bore, the 270 grain JFN does 2,210 fps; the 300 grain JFN, 2,095 fps; and the 325 gain LBT LFN hard cast, 2,009 fps. With Cor-Bon's two loadings we find the 280 grain Bonded Core at 2,248 fps and the 305 grain JFP at 2,070. In my reloading of the .444 Marlin I have used jacketed bullets from Barnes, Freedom Arms, Hornady, Sierra, and Speer. There are certainly others available however these are the ones I have used not only in the .444 Marlin but the little brother .44 Magnum as well. Barnes marks their bullets for the .44 Magnum and .444 Marlin while all the others were developed to give reloaders a tough bullet for use in .44 Magnum sixguns.
For most of us whose big game hunting is restricted to whitetail deer and maybe, if we are fortunate, a chance at a black bear, the 265 Hornady remains a fine choice. This is one of those bullets so good I almost think it was simply discovered rather than invented. It gives superb long range accuracy in .44 Magnum sixguns, I used it for years for long range silhouetting, as well as being suitable for hunting big game. When it comes to cast bullets, and this is what I mostly use in the .444 Marlin now that the poor accuracy with cast bullets myth has been laid to rest, I once again use the same heavy bullets that have been so successful in .44 Magnum sixguns. Both the NEI 295 grain gas checked semi-wadcutter and RCBS's 300 grain versions of the same bullet are traditional Keith designs with flat points and wide front driving bands. They are not recognizable as such when loaded in the .444 Marlin as they must be crimped over the front shoulder to allow feeding.
For top accuracy I found that these bullets as well as their jacketed counterparts should be driven to a minimum velocity of 1,900 feet per second in the original 24" barrel. That is the bullet weight and muzzle velocity mentioned earlier. A 300 grain bullet at 1900 feet per second or more in the .444 Marlin, even with MicroGroove rifling, will perform. One can only dream of what could be done with these in a longer action. The slightly heavier bullets from the old SSK #310.430 mold and Cast Performance Bullet Co.'s 320 grain LBT gas check are both very flat nosed for maximum energy transfer when they hit. These are probably the best choice in cast bullets for using the .444 Marlin on really big tough critters. They break big bones and penetrate heavy muscles.
If my levergun was to be used only for small deer and small hogs I would go with the .44 Magnum. If the menu included the larger bears and possibly Africa, my choice would certainly be the .45-70. But for a levergun that can nearly do it all, the .444 Marlin, properly loaded, remains an excellent choice. It spite of all the testing that has been done with results to the contrary over the past 56+ years, from time to time we still see articles published about best 'brush' cartridges with conclusions certain bullet weights and calibers would somehow 'cut brush'. This is wrong! There are no cartridges that can be counted on to deliver killing shots through brush of any size. When a high-peed projectile hits a twig or sapling or brush or bush or tree, anything can happen and very little of it is positive. Of course some are better than others. I would certainly expect a 500 grain .458 bullet to 'cut brush' better than a high-speed projectile such as the .220 Swift. Maybe. At least if one hits a small tree in front of the intended quarry, the .458 might go through completely; again, maybe.
No, brush guns do not enable us to shoot through brush. They are so named simply because they handle easier in heavy cover or thick brush and most importantly, they come up to the shoulder and swing ever so quickly. Try carrying and swinging a 24” barreled rifle in heavy cover; the noted elephant hunter, Pondoro Taylor, wrote of almost being killed when the long barrel of his rifle got caught up in brush. The easiest carrying brush guns are short barreled, quick on the first shot, and just as quick to chamber a second shot. That means a levergun and we do not need 300 yard cartridges or rifles. Again, we are not talking cartridges that will penetrate brush; we are instead talking close-range cartridges that will deliver a big heavy bullet at ranges up to 100 yards, more likely 50 yards, and do it quickly and efficiently. Here are some loads capable of doing exactly what we are talking about. Expect a lot more recoil than that generated by a similarly sized .44 Magnum levergun and one-inch, three- shot groups at 50 yards:
Load MV 18-1/2” Barrel
Barnes 275 JFP/48.0 gr. H322 1,956 fps
Barnes 275 JFP/46.0 grs. RE-7 2,081 fps
Barnes 300 JFP/45.0 grs. RE-7 2,030 fps
Freedom Arms 300/48.0 gr. H322 2,006 fps
Hornady 265 JFP/50.8 gr. H322 2,000 fps
Hornady 265 JFP/51.3 gr. H4895 2,046 fps
Hornady 265 JFP/47.0 gr. RE-7 2,067 fps
Hornady 300 XTP/51.3 gr. H4895 1,927 fps
Hornady 300 XTP/48.0 gr. H322 2,075 fps
Sierra 300 JFP/51.3 gr. H4895 1,894 fps
Sierra 300 JFP/48.0 gr. H322 2,006 fps
Speer 300 JFP/48.0 gr. H322 2,036 fps
Speer 300 JFP/51.3 gr. H4895 1,923 fps
Speer 300 JFP/49.6 gr. H4895 1,728 fps
BRP 295 GC/51.3 gr. H4895 1,900 fps
BRP 295 GC/49.3 gr. H4895 1,831 fps
BRP 295 GC/46.0 grs. RE-7 2,142 fps
Cast Performance 320/45.0 grs RE-7 2,065 fps
RCBS #44-300 SWC GC/49.3 gr. H4895 1,831 fps
SSK 310 FP/ 51.3 gr. H4895 1,906 fps

I remember pouring over the Marlin adds as a boy

WB
[subject]
Friday, November 18, 2022, 07:55 (497 days ago) @ JT

They showed a 3/8” plate of steel the .444 had blasted through compared to a .308. While the 240 was the only factory load offered they did mention the Hornady 265 that was specifically designed for the .444 as a hand loaders option. I still think it’s probably the best bullet for the round.

Your 300 Sierra load, I’d figure too long OAL for crimping in the crimp groove? I like that bullet for the .44!

Those early 265 Hornady JSP were tough. As hard as I could drive it from my SBH I could only mash the nose flat shooting into seasoned oak logs. Never got any expansion.

.444 Marlin 14" Contender

AlanT
[subject]
Friday, November 18, 2022, 08:28 (497 days ago) @ WB

I have been shooting a 14" contender in .444 Marlin (rechambered .44 mag barrel) since '85. When I first started loading for it, we found the 265 Hornady was the lightest bullet that could bring out the cartridges potential (with no shoulder area to help build pressure, you need bullet mass and neck tension to get decent velocities. I quickly discovered the Barnes original .44 Caliber 300 grain bullet and shot it for years right around 1950fps. We tried other companies' 300 grain .44 bullets as they were introduced. Eventually I ordered a mold and now cast a 345 grain bullet; driving it to 1750fps.

That’s a hot round for the Contender!

WB
[subject]
Friday, November 18, 2022, 10:56 (497 days ago) @ AlanT

We shot Gary’s .429 GNR on the Encore chassis using the Lee 310 gr. FNGC which runs 1800-1850 for the 12” barrel! For the capacity it impressed me. With the single shots OAL is not really an issue until you touch the rifling.

In all our tests on the 429 GNR it beat the 444 in

Gary Reeder
[subject]
Friday, November 18, 2022, 13:35 (497 days ago) @ WB

every test. Using an equal length barrel and same weight bullet the 429 GNR beat the 444 considerably. That was with factory 444. I assumed the factory 444 ammo wasn't loaded up to the possible maximum as they have no control on what firearm it is fired in. Either way the 429 GNR did what we expected it to do.

We've literally taken a dump truck load of critters with the

WB
[subject]
Friday, November 18, 2022, 14:01 (497 days ago) @ Gary Reeder

.429 GNR. Not that the .44 Mag is a slouch, but with a turbo added it really shows out. My revolver ran the 310 gr. at over 1600 fps with top loads. MY little Marlin 16" 1894SS custom in .429 GNR punted a 240 gr. cast SWCGC at nearly 2200 fps!

I've loaned it out a few times to other hunters, it always makes a one shot stop.

Pap is gone but I still have the Marlin and skull as a trophy. Good memories (2010 HHC).
[image]

Hog's skull, not Pap's!

WB
[subject]
Friday, November 18, 2022, 14:03 (497 days ago) @ WB

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Whew. Thanks for clearing that up!

AlanT
[subject]
Friday, November 18, 2022, 17:24 (497 days ago) @ WB

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.444 MARLIN PIX

JT
[subject]
Thursday, November 17, 2022, 16:00 (498 days ago) @ WB

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